Harker Lifers Dinner

This article originally appeared in the summer 2016 Harker Quarterly.

On the day before graduation and immediately following the baccalaureate ceremony, 35 “lifers” – students who attended Harker from kindergarten through their senior year – gathered at the home of Head of School Chris Nikoloff for the annual Lifer Dinner. Upon arriving at the home by bus, the students enjoyed a sumptuous dinner and dessert, the latter of which came in the form of a cake with an edible photo of the lifers on it. The seniors had a lively discussion about their Harker experiences and even broke into an impromptu rendition of “The Harker School Song” to cap things off.

This year’s lifers are: Aashika Balaji, Akshay Battu, Caitlin Benge, Rishabh Chandra, Jonathan Dai, Marita Del Alto, Alexandra Dellar, Emma Doherty, Kaitlyn Gee, Eliot Gruzman, Grace Guan, Suraj Jagadeesh, John Nicolas Jerney, Maya Jeyendran, Kevin Ke, Abhinav Ketineni, Janet Lee, Natasha Mayor, Mary Najibi, Rishi Narain, Selin Ozcelik, Kristen Park, Nikita Ramoji, Shannon Richardson, Kurt Schwartz, Ankita Sharma, Elisabeth Siegel, Natalie Simonian, Gurutam Thockchom, Madison Tomihiro, Allison Wang, Kevin Wang, Helen Woodruff, Aparna Yellapragada and Jonathan Yiu.

Class of 2016 Matriculates

This list originally appeared in the summer 2016 Harker Quarterly. 

Amherst College – 1

Boston University – 3

Brown University – 3

Butler University – 1

California Institute of Technology – 4

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona – 1

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo – 1

Carnegie Mellon University – 3

Chapman University – 2

Claremont McKenna College – 2

Colorado College – 1

Columbia University – 3

Cornell University – 5

De Anza College  – 1

Drexel University – 2

Duke University – 3

Emory University – 2

Emory University – Oxford College – 2

Georgia Institute of Technology – 1

The George Washington University – 1

Georgetown University – 1

Harvard University – 2

Hawaii Pacific University – 1

Indiana University at Bloomington – 1

Johns Hopkins University – 2

Macalester College – 1

Massachusetts Institute of Technology – 7

Mills College – 1

Mount Holyoke College – 1

New York Film Academy – 1

New York University – 10

Northeastern University – 1

Northwestern University – 2

Occidental College – 1

Pitzer College – 1

Pomona College – 1

Princeton University – 2

Purdue University – 2

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – 2

Rice University – 2

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology – 1

Salve Regina University – 1

San Jose City College – 1

Santa Clara University – 7

Southern Methodist University – 1

Stanford University – 9

Stevens Institute of Technology – 1

Tufts University – 3

University of Chicago – 4

University College London – 1

University of California, Berkeley – 17

University of California, Los Angeles – 3

University of California, Irvine – 1

University of California, San Diego – 1

University of California, Santa Barbara – 1

University of California, Santa Cruz – 2

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – 7

University of Maryland, College Park – 1

University of Michigan – 3

University of Notre Dame – 1

University of the Pacific – 1

University of Pennsylvania – 4

University of Puget Sound – 1

University of Redlands – 1

University of Southern California – 9

University of St Andrews – 1

University of Toronto – 1

The University of Texas, Austin – 2

University of Washington – 3

University of Wisconsin, Madison – 2

Virginia Commonwealth University – 1

Washington University in St Louis – 2

Wesleyan University – 1

Whitman College – 1

Whittier College – 1

Worcester Polytechnic Institute – 1

Yale University – 3

Annual Brick Ceremony Commemorates Students’ Years at Harker

This story originally appeared in the summer 2016 Harker Quarterly.

Members of the Class of 2016 and their parents gathered at Graduates’ Grove on the upper school campus in late May for the annual brick ceremony, where dozens of graduating seniors placed bricks in the walkway to commemorate their years at Harker.

Each year, the bricks are laid in the path, which winds through Graduates’ Grove, past a babbling brook and fountain and among towering redwood trees, a tangible reminder of those who’ve come before.

This Harker tradition was started by the parents of the first class of upper school graduates in 2002. It has since become a way for graduating students to preserve the memories of their time at Harker, while serving as a reminder of their legacy for future graduates.

Placing bricks in the grove at this year’s ceremony were: Sachit Agarwal, Shalini Arimilli, Sorjo Banerjee, Akshay Battu, Jonathan Dai, Victoria Ding, Emma Doherty, Elizabeth Anne Edwards, Kaitlyn Gee, Arthur Wolff Goldstein, Prithvi Gudapati, Cynthia Vivian Hao, Jonathan Hochberg, Shannon Hong, Kevin Hu, Kaylan Huang, Raghav Jain, John Nicolas Jerney, Kevin Ke, Johnathon Keller, Malvika Khanna, Mehul Khetrapal, Philip Krause, Lawrence Li, Lisa Liu, Sophia Y. Luo, Alex Lyon, Dhanush Madabusi, Sadhika Malladi, Shreya Mathur, Natasha Mayor, Dakota McNealy, Michael Moncton, Melina Nakos, Kristen Park, Shannon Richardson, Jackiel Rothschild, Edward Y. Sheu, Elisabeth Siegel, Ameek Singh, Surya Solanki, Sai Shreya Sunkara, Chandini Thakur, Allison Wang, Tong Wu, Kevina Xiao, Daphne Yang, Richard Yi, Jonathan Yiu, Michael Zhao and Ashley Zhong.